Cantabile
by acogna
Summary: Modern AU. A masked assassin longs to leave his life of violence behind. But when he witnesses an innocent man die, he is forced back into a world of intrigue and murder to keep Christine Daaé, the sole inheritor of the valuable 1744 Guarneri Cantabile violin, safe from those who seek to take the heirloom for themselves, and will stop at nothing to see her dead for it.
1. Convenience

**Modern AUs for **_**Phantom**_** are always a sort of hit-or-miss phenomenon. They either get a bullseye worth many praises or they lose the target entirely. For this fic, I too am going to attempt to let an arrow fly and try my luck to see where mine lands. **

**This fic was heavily inspired by many neo-noir action films, plenty of pointless MacGuffin plot bunnies, and the fic **_**Volée**_** by the fantastic VeroniqueClaire, which is one of those fics that gets better and better with age. Go give it a read, if you haven't already.**

**The canon I'm following here is actually an amalgamation of every **_**Phantom**_** preference I tend to have, but follows the themes and plot of the novel more than it does the musical. I take little tidbits from everywhere (like Christine here is blonde, I use Erik's half mask, stuff like that) and glue them together in a sort of weird blender remix, as you do.**

**Before I begin this properly, I'd like to give credit where it's due and bring my friend Pam, whose many angsty hurt/comfort plottings actually became most of the E/C moments in this fic and who also did the best job of beta reading it, into the spotlight for these few words. Hey, you. First of all, thank you for allowing me to plagarise you, but in all seriousness, this is your fic as it is mine, solely on the amount of ideas you bring to this ship. Your passion for **_**Phantom**_** goes unmatched and so does your skill for understanding its themes, complications, nuances, and—dare I say it—its hidden beauty. You're a great writer and an even better friend and don't let anything tell you otherwise.**

**This first chapter is going to be relatively shorter than most of the other chapters to follow, and Christine doesn't show up here but will in the next one. I just need this first now as a springboard.**

* * *

The first thing he notes upon arriving at Perros-Guirec is how perfect it is. Almost _too_ perfect, as if a place like this shouldn't exist. The ambiance, the seaside smell of the air that always lingers no matter what time of day, the sound of the waves like a song that echoes throughout the narrow streets: something from an idyllic dream that has no place on this dreadful earth. Where the shore crashed upon the rocks and the days were as cold and tranquil as the evenings, it was too beautiful to be real, a white sheet for smears of blood to taint.

That day, a sleek black car that no one seems to pay mind to arrives without warning. It pulls up in front of a tall, narrow building: an old thing of brick and cement appearing far older than it claims to be. A figure cloaked in black emerges from the vehicle, pulling from the trunk a large overnight bag in one gloved hand and a violin case in the other. He locks the car with a press of a button, filling the rural air with the unwelcome dissonance of a loud beep, piercing through the quiet as if his mere presence alone is disruptive to the environment.

Though there's some difficulty in the act, he inhales. God, it's no wonder they asked him to take something of a short vacation; it could be an admission of weakness, but even breathing in the salty air as he approaches the inn's door awakens a need for relaxation he'd rather not relent to.

The lobby is humble, rather small, and appears to be focused more on how to adorn the space with the seaside aesthetic Perros-Guirec is known for than to be practical. The walls are painted in the faint traces of an almost-white blue, with wicker chairs and driftwood coffee table pieces distributed bleakly throughout the remaining space. A photo of the shore above the empty concierge desk is caged in a frame with seashells that looks too sophisticated for the simple furnishing.

A change in scenery also calls for a change in taste, apparently.

Thankfully, the clerk at the check-in desk is a distracted adolescent who looks perpetually bored with her job, the sort that would rather be reading magazines or stay holed up in their rooms. Once the door opens, she spares a bored glance at the newcomer, does a double take with wide eyes (as one does), then leans back on her swivel chair tentatively when he approaches, as if waiting to press the panic button beneath the desk.

"I have a reservation booked."

Her eyes widen even more, then blink incredulously, as if the words that leave his mouth aren't his own. Ah, he forgets, his voice tends to have that effect on people: the low, smooth baritone and the unnaturally precise manner of his diction, an accent which can't be pinned down but could be described as attractive without disagreement. It had always been a voice that didn't quite fit his face.

Well, _half_ his face, in any case.

"I-I'm sorry?" the girl manages to bleat out.

He sighs, fragments of a larger exhaustion released in a breath. "Mademoiselle, I drove five and a half hours to get here. It wouldn't be appropriate for you to be inept in attending to your establishment's customers."

She audibly gulps, her face burning. "Right, sorry." As if to make up for the lost time she spent gaping, she stands rather abruptly from her chair, bringing up a ledger book between them and scanning through the entries. "What name is your reservation under?"

He hesitates for a moment as he places down his bags. "Séraphin."

She blinks again, pausing almost as if in thought before leafing through the ledger, which he notices isn't arranged by date, as most hotels are, but alphabetically. As he tries to think of any sort of reason as to how that could be efficient, she taps a name with her finger and there, written in some abhorrent cursive, is the last name. She turns the ledger around, while he takes a pen from the stand and signs in the cell next to it.

"So," she says, as if to fill in the uncomfortable silence, _"you're_ M. Séraphin?"

He finishes the signature and puts the pen back. "What of it?"

She shrugs, taking the ledger back. "Nothing, I just thought you'd be… I don't know, shorter?"

He takes a moment to absorb that, but can't exactly describe how it makes him feel if it isn't uncomfortable, in an odd way.

She configures something on the desk below, then procures a small keycard and a slip of paper, which she gives to him. "Uh… here's your key."

He takes both items from her, the feeling of her skin grazing the leather of his gloves unnerving. Written on the paper is a series of numbers following the name of the inn. "What's this?"

She looks at him as if he's stupid, like all her prior fear has vanished simply with the apparent obliviousness of his question. "The Wi-Fi password."

He regrets asking. "Ah."

"Your room is 386, third floor." She leans forward and stretches her hand out to gesture to the corridor. "Elevator's along that hallway there, Monsieur."

He picks up his bag and his violin, then proceeds to make his way to the elevator.

"Hey."

He stops, and a small shot of fear lances through his chest.

He's suddenly aware of how heavy the violin is in his hands, and how his legs ache from standing abruptly after sitting for five hours driving to this godforsaken paradise town. Turning his head seems like a mistake, the weight of the right side of his face clearly visible in the light. And perhaps that's the reason she looks positively nervous, curling her fingers into her palms tentatively to release tension, her body posture horribly erect.

"I… uh…" she starts.

His heartbeat is loud in his ears.

_Don't ask about the mask. Please, don't ask about the mask._

To his surprise, her voice nearly drops to a whisper, sounding laden with guilt. "I like the concerto in the latest album you made. The one in C minor."

Relief flows through him. A small smile makes his way to what's visible of his lips, a bit of sorrow staining it, that this girl probably feels utterly embarrassed that she finds joy in music, when that should never be the case. "That one is my favourite as well."

She returns his grin and allows him to disappear into the corridor. Once he presses the button, the yawning gates of the elevator open and close behind him, bringing him to the third floor, while a loud, long sigh of relief echoes through the empty chamber on the ride there. It doesn't take him long to find his room: a cosy, quaint-looking thing furnished simply with a single bed, an armchair, a desk, a single bathroom (sans mirror, as he requested), and a wide balcony that also serves as the only window.

Setting down his luggage to free his hands, he slides the glass door open to allow more of the tangy saltwater breeze to flow into the room and ruffle the sheer curtains, attempting to invigorate his dormant want of a getaway.

He locks the door, takes a few deep breaths, then the clockwork begins to churn.

His large black coat rolls off his shoulders first, then the leather gloves come off. After that, the waistcoat is unbuttoned and shrugged off as well, but the tie is only slightly loosened. He rolls up his sleeves to the elbows, creasing the crisp fabric of his dress shirt and causing folds that run all the way to his shoulders. He still cringes at the sight of the black ink on his skin of his right arm, a series of triangles, swirls, and musical notes spiraling from his wrist, up his arm and disappearing into his cuffs. Oh, the foolish acts of a younger man.

He steels himself for the repeat of this damn ritual. _Ritual,_ he thinks, some cursed word that sounds and feels like a repeated, disliked, but necessary gesture of something unholy. He takes slow breaths, as his eyes close and he tries to dull whatever sensation he can from his body. His fingers move to find the edges of the mask eclipsing half of his face, and he peels it off and sets it down on the nearest available surface.

The cold smooth porcelain on his fingertips, the sharp yet sleek edges that pretend so pathetically be something he lost so long ago; rarely does he ever see the mask in his hands within walls that aren't his own. The thought is disturbing, but the cool air on the skin of all his face is a welcome sensation, as much as it dismays him.

Carefully, he props the violin case on the desk and unlatches it, lifting the Stradivarius and its bow from their velvet lining, bringing the chin rest to his neck. The stance grounds him, a picture of graceful, perfect asymmetry of a human figure. He absorbs the sensation of the metal strings underneath his fingers, and skims the bow quickly in miniscule movements to start the Bach prelude.

_No._ He stops on the first few notes through the partita.

He pauses, takes a thin breath, and plays the beginning of the prelude once more. However, instead of continuing through Bach in E major, he runs past the major notes and down the chromatic scale of Ysaÿe, and lets the quickening notes carry themselves across the cold sea wind.

* * *

Perhaps he should be grateful for convenience store chains and their absurdly isolating business hours. Of course, there are always questions, but the employees during these dark morning hours are usually too groggy to prod or judge the late night clientele. But he miscalculated when expended his limited water supply of his hotel room faster than expected, and as much as he loathes going outside, even for dire necessities, it always seems like some inconsequential chore meant to be procrastinated. And it isn't as if he could ask the front desk for water either; no, that would require an unfortunate, sleep-deprived employee to walk up to his room and talk to him which, frankly, would be a situation unpleasant for both parties involved.

The digital bedside clock reads eleven in the evening as he refitts himself with his many dark layers, which now included the addition of a wide-brimmed fedora and a scarf to cover the lower half of his face. He tucks ten euros into an inner pocket of his long coat, fixing the creases of his outfit where they need adjustment. He needs no mirror to rectify the erroneous logistics of his physicality, as the years without one have taught him. The mask, as always, remains a constant, one both imperative and scorned.

The convenience store is directly across the street from the inn, which spares him the trouble of driving to the other edge of town in search of bottled water (and how odd, that now in its scarcity and need, does it seem to be a luxury). The garish colours of the store's logo are the only bright beacon against the dark town, long asleep. At this hour, in Paris, the streets would still be teeming with light and movement, until the rising sun would wake a sleepless city.

God, he's been in Paris for too long. Any stranger would think that the city knows him more than anyone, when it's always been the other way around.

The chime sound that plays over the speakers once he opens the creaking glass door is enough to make his skin crawl—a horrid single measure playing a sorry excuse of a major pentatonic scale. A brief glance at the cashier counter reveals a young man scrolling lazily through his phone as he downs what one can only assume to be a caffeinated beverage. _He_ finds the convex mirror hanging on one of the upper corners of the ceiling, overlooking all the aisles, and releases a sigh of relief upon learning that other than the cashier, the store is empty.

_Careful._

He tears his glance away from the faraway reflection, in fear that he'll start looking for his own visage there. Fright bristles his nerves as he makes his way through the store.

_Mirrors. Beware of mirrors._

To ask that exhausted cashier boy where the water is would necessitate a certain degree of courage and patience he doesn't have, and thus he's better off left to his own devices, in what ought to amount to a trivial task; it _would_ be, for a normal man. The refrigerators against the rear wall of the establishment store beverages, so it must be there. He paces through the small maze of shelves and scans through the freezers' contents to find the cheapest alternative when the unthinkable happens.

Or at least, what he supposes the unthinkable _should_ be.

That horrible chime sound plays again, accompanied by the scraping of the door against the carpet.

Someone's just entered the store. His blood goes cold.

Why is that enough to give him pause? Why is that enough to send a chill up his spine when he's cloaked in multiple layers, from head to foot? Why does dread still paralyse him? An old mannerism causes his hand to flinch and reach up to tilt the rim of his fedora down, at an angle to the right, to better conceal the mask. Just as a failsafe, he tugs his scarf higher and stands incredibly still, willing the new stranger away or himself invisible.

Once he gains his bearings, he quickly opens the fridge, the cold mist curling from within it as he takes two bottles without a second thought and attempts to briskly walk back to the counter. His eyes are averted to the ground, and luckily his attention would have him skid to a halt before he bumped into the man at the checkstand in front of him.

Against his better judgment, his eyes are quick to read him with the mere seconds of a furtive glance. From the back, he's dressed plainly, in an olive green windbreaker and trousers, not an uncommon choice given the usual weather. The most striking thing about him, however, is his hair: a mop of golden curls and a silk-like sheen that still manage to look luxurious even under the most dreary of convenience store lighting, a sort of sunlight colour fading into grey near his temples. The blond man speaks to the cashier in French, but the way his r's seem to harden instead of being inhaled through the throat cavity creates an audible dent in his accent. It's not something a normal person at a convenience store late into the evening would have noticed, but it's enough to catch his curiosity; a foreigner, then. But suddenly, an old fear strikes an unlocking chain of instincts within him—how to disarm, where a gun could be tucked into his belt, the fastest way to knock him out, if his coat would allow him ample enough room to move. Then he curses his own worries and attempts to rebury the past he had dug up again, a torrent of unwelcome memories pushed back into the recesses of his mind. Hopefully. they'll be forgotten for the night.

"That'll be 1.75," the cashier says sleepily.

"Ah, yes," the blond man says, flustered as he digs through the contents of his pockets; but it appears that the more pockets he digs through, the more rattled he gets, and the longer he takes holding up the short line, barring _his_ exit. "Hold on… it should be in this one, let me—"

_Damn it._ "Here."

_He_ digs into his pocket and fishing out the ten euro bill, his gloved hand slamming it down on the counter. Both the clerk and the other man look up at him, as his height or voice would demand, and he gives a tight-lipped smile to the cashier, who gawks dumbly at the right side of his face.

_Stop staring._

"Thank you," the foreigner says, diverting _his_ attention from the impertinent cashier and meeting him at eye level, as if the mask and the scarf attempting to cover it aren't even there, as if his menacing figure didn't matter in the slightest; perhaps he could never believe in human kindness, but the smile this man gives is enough to make him reconsider his cynicism, even for a moment.

"Thank you so much, Monsieur. I'll pay you back."

"No need," _he_ replies, as the cashier gives the other man his receipt and proceeds to bag his groceries: a box of pancake mix and a carton of milk.

He forgets that he's staring, until the foreigner finds it necessary to justify himself. "Breakfast. Must have slipped my mind this afternoon."

"Pancakes," the word leaves him rather stupidly before he stops himself from rambling on. _Don't continue to invite conversation._

"My daughter, she loves pancakes," the blond man says, much to the other's chagrin, as he takes the bag from the cashier. "Once again, thank you, Monsieur. I really do intend to pay you back."

He places the bottles of water on the counter as the foreigner moves to the side. "Again, _there's no need."_

Suddenly, the blond man lurches forward, as if his legs ceased to function, and tries to resist what came over him before gripping the counter for support. It's enough to make even the cashier grow alert and divert his attention from the half mask.

"Are you alright, sir?" the cashier asks, now concerned.

The blond man waves it off, distributing his weight over a shoulder-width stance. _He_ should know that such a position is used to hide swaying and combat dizziness. (Or in _his_ case, one that accompanies drunken episodes.)

"I'm fine," the blond man nearly burps out. "Don't worry about me."

"You don't seem fine," _he_ adds now, berating his speech mentally for involving himself in a situation he never wanted to be in.

"I'm okay, honestly," the foreigner smiles again, waving his hand as he turns around to walk out the door. "Goodnight, Monsieurs."

The door closes with a shift and a click into place. He now directs his attention fully to the cashier scanning his items. It's obvious from the way the boy turns his gaze away that he wants a chance to look at _his_ face (or what _should_ be his face), and is trying to catch him at a moment where he thinks he's unaware. He can try his luck.

"So," the cashier boy starts, which he shouldn't. "You know each other?"

_Shut up, you stupid boy._ "No."

Another moment of silence passes as the shuffling of plastic fills the silence of the store. The boy opens his mouth as if to ask something else when a noise is heard outside,something heavy dropping on the pavement. Then a painful choking breaks over in its wake.

"What was that?" the cashier asks, nervousness cracking through his voice.

Not a second is wasted. _He_ rushes out and finds the foreigner on his stomach against the pavement, groaning loudly and clutching his chest. The carton of milk in his bag had been crushed, its contents spilling out onto the street. _He_ kneels and turns the blond man over, and it appalls him that he doesn't grimace at the sight of blood dripping from the latter's lips, with his skin cold, and his pallor deathly.

"Call an ambulance," _he_ says urgently to the cashier hovering uselessly by the door.

The boy, however, has grown as pale as the fallen, his legs shaking at the sight of blood on the pavement.

The voice now is no longer simply urgent, but angry. "Now!"

The idiot obeys this time scurries back inside. _He_ removes his hat and kneels, adjusting the blond man's body over him to make sure he doesn't choke on blood. The scarf goes too, crumbled to be used as a makeshift pillow upon his knee.

It sickens him, how the closing in of death is nothing to shock him, but this one feels odd, almost like a pitiful deprivation of mercy. He questions why he cares so much, but the answer comes as quickly as the query does. This man, who felt like both a stranger to this town and someone who had lived here all his life, wasn't anyone entangled in the evils of the world, good or bad; he was simply someone living in a peaceful beachside town, and he looked into _his_ eyes and saw _him._ Not the mask, or the voice, but _him._

The injured man, through his quivering lips, whispers something too soft for him to hear.

"Don't speak," _he_ looks back at the store, and through the glass, cashier speaks frantically on the phone.

"You…" the blond man says weakly, but in a tone cloaked in comfort he didn't have earlier, "you're an angel."

_He_ pretends to hide his surprise. That wasn't French that he spoke; it was Swedish.

"I simply paid for your groceries, sir," comes the clipped yet almost uncomprehending reply, matching the other's foreign tongue, and the man's eyes widen in amazement. "Say nothing. Conserve your strength."

"You… you _are_ an angel."

He couldn't ever be one; not now, not ever. "Sir, please—"

"What is your name?"

He goes still, the cold air tasting vaguely of salt whips around them. _Don't tell him anything. He mustn't know anything. Nobody can know anything._

He sighs softly. "Erik."

"Erik…" the Swedish lilt of the name sounds better on his choking tongue than it ever did on anyone else's. His hand trembles as it latches onto Erik's gloved wrist.

He makes no effort to hide his instinctive recoil, but this dying man doesn't seem to mind.

"My name is Gustave," the blond man splutters the syllables of his name, and Erik is halfway through shutting him up again for his own sake when Gustave speaks first. "Will… you do me one last favour, and listen to what I have to say?"

Erik says nothing, but Gustave can somehow sense the dormant agreement within him.

With what seems to be the last of his breaths, Gustave tells him what he can: they know that he has it, and now they'll go after his daughter because they'll think she knows that he had it too. She must be protected, and it must be hers.

There's only enough time and energy to answer what 'it' is: a 1744 Guarneri Cantabile, the rarest violin in the world, the first and the last of its kind. Valuable, expensive, to kill for.

But before Erik can ask any more questions or protest further, the sirens of the incoming ambulance cut him short, and Gustave falls unconscious.

He still doesn't know what sort of humanity remains within his heart that prompted him to follow the old man into the hospital, and wait for eight hours outside a cold, sterilised building he's been repulsed by since the moment he was born in one, pondering the promise he made to a Swedish man on his deathbed: a man he barely knew but felt understood him the way the world never did. That sort of interpersonal mystery, however, is now the least of his concerns.

He has a promise to fulfill, no matter how badly the question of 'why' pervades his sense of thought. But two questions hinder him from accomplishing the task.

He doesn't know who 'they' are.

He doesn't know who Gustave's daughter is.

Both of these inquisitions go unanswered. Gustave doesn't make pancakes for his daughter the following morning, and that day marks the first of the rest she will spend waking up in their home alone.


	2. Emergence

**This is a first for me writing Christine's narration. And, as such, I'm sorry in advance.**

**_But_ the two meet here! So, yay?**

**Also, couldn't help but notice the fantastic Wheel of Fish in the reviews a few days ago. Hi, Fish! Me and my beta reader friend? _Big_ fans of your work. Glad you're enjoying so far.**

* * *

She was woken up that morning rather unusually, thinking her father simply overslept and that's why the ringing doorbell didn't go answered.

She was greeted by a man in a suit who offered to escort her to the hospital, and when her confusion and questions were somberly answered, every morning after that one was always the same. How unreal it should feel, to have something and then lose it without ever thinking it could be lost. Did she take all those days until now for granted? Every single morning, every night, every argument she had whenever she asked about her mother and every reconciliation in sobs afterwards? Every fight they had when he prodded her as to why she left the Conservatoire de Paris, and every tearful fit she threw when she couldn't tell him when she didn't know herself? Why it hurt to admit to him that what he thought was the most beautiful voice in the world was just one among thousands?

His heart had been broken a thousand times for one lifetime; she couldn't do it. But now, there was no heart to break.

Perhaps she was wrong to think him invincible, when she was aware more than anyone that he was anything but. He was simply a man with a passion for the violin, who loved pancakes and his daughter's voice and the smell and sound of the waves.

Loved her. _Loved,_ in past tense.

The funeral was a small event, nothing too showy, just as he would have wanted it to be. The religious side of the ceremony was conducted in the small town chapel, attended by a few of the townspeople of Perros-Guirec who knew him as the neighboring violinist, and Mme. Valerius, come all the way from Paris in her old creaking wheelchair, skin as pale as the white of her curly hair. She still had that gaze, the sort that Christine spent years puzzling over, but she now understood exactly what it was: the loss of a loved one.

"You don't have to stay here, Christine," the old woman had told her before the ceremony began. "You can live with me, in Paris. It's what your father would have wanted."

Christine could only smile sadly. She didn't know what her father would have wanted for her anymore.

He wanted to be buried on the hill overlooking the lighthouse, about fifteen minutes away from the town, shaded by the tree that he used to play Bach under. The day was not rainy, as most of the clichés she had known from old French films were usually prone to have for funerals, but it was a cold morning and most of those in attendance had to wear long coats, gloves and scarves. Maybe it was this sad uniformity that made a figure in the crowd stand out among the rest.

She remembered him being tall and elegant, like the black clothing suited him in a way it could have suited no one else, among the colour of mourning that was worn almost universally. He had dark hair, and the outline of what seemed to be half a face. A mask.

They had locked their gazes with one another for that brief moment, but she pulled away quickly when she felt like she was staring for too long, heart hammering in her chest for fear of all the eyes upon her.

Of _course_ he would have noticed her. She was standing on the podium ready to deliver the eulogy. She was the only one to give it.

Even now, weeks after the eulogy, she hates the sound of her voice when she speaks of him—even in her mind, alone in the chilly walls of the ground floor apartment they used to call their own. It sounds too insincere, with no emotion or sorrow driving it; but nothing—no poem or elegy or paragraph from any of the books he owned—could ever describe that feeling of isolation, of a festering void eating everything she was or will be from the inside out.

Time didn't exist, for those short moments. Nothing seemed to matter; there was nothing to look forward to, nothing to celebrate. Even the sight of the empty room was enough to drive her to tears for the rest of the day, for the rest of every sleepless night. The only sound that filled the halls in the following days were no longer the notes of a fiddle in tune but the melancholy of a young woman who had lost all she had. She couldn't go to sleep properly, and saw the hints of the sun before she would fall asleep on the mattress that used to be his.

As she had been too young to grieve her mother when she died, she couldn't understand what sort of heavy, dark spirit had possessed her father during the months after her passing. But now, with her own father's funeral, she can name what it was: grief, a sensation of mourning, a loss that twists the very strings stretched across the heart and slides like a creaking bow over it to play the most dissonant of notes. The deepest of sorrows in a fit of raging sobs like tempests that won't stop coming, day after day, night after night.

While social gatherings and meeting new people outside had been slightly unpleasant but never something she minded before, in the weeks that followed, she would flinch if anyone tried so much as to greet her on the sidewalk; if they spoke to offer their condolences, it was usually worse. Stepping outside her home felt more like a chore than it ever did before, simply to buy groceries and food to sustain herself; not for two, as it had been before. As much as possible, she would avoid the convenience store downtown.

It felt like shadows were cornering her, everywhere she went.

Her reflection had become a picturesque melancholy: her fair skin had grown wan, the dark circles around her eyes seemed to make them sink into her skull, and the ocean blue of their irises seemed to dull into a murky darkness. Her hair, _Father's_ blonde hair, had grown matted and frayed from weeks of neglect. The beauty she was once praised for so heavily in her teenage years had been gnarled by endless hours of misery.

It's this reflection that she sees one morning among many other mornings, and she decides then and there once she washes her face clean of a four-hour sleep that it can't go on like this. This cannot be the daughter that he loved so unconditionally.

"Weeks," she says weakly, and the frail woman in the mirror speaks in a voice so sickly and hoarse she can't even recognise it. "It's been three weeks. You need to go."

And she listens.

She dresses comfortably for the cold weather of Perros-Guirec, but instead of her coat, she dons one of her father's large and creasing windbreakers. Incredible, how they still felt like his warm embrace, after a brief period of rotting away in his closet.

On her way to the door, she passes the coffee table in the living room, where a large cardboard box sat, gathering a thin layer of dust and bursting through its crumpled seams of painful, loving memories. And as she spares it a glance, eyes brimming with tears once again, she finds something within her that wasn't there before, the lone warmth of a fire stoking itself in her heart against the cold winter of her body.

She needs to open it tonight.

* * *

The walk to the chapel is brisk with the lack of morning foot traffic, and the quaint structure of the building is a welcome sight amidst the modernising houses of the town; with its old brown stone and tiled roofs, it appears the way churches looked like in the small Swedish villages so long ago. A pang of faint homesickness for memories she can no longer recall turns her sentimental smile into a pitying one. The oaken doors are slightly ajar, and she pushes them open with a moaning creak to create a small enough space for her petite frame to fit through.

Thankfully, it's a Wednesday (or, at least she remembers it was Wednesday the last time she checked her phone), so the chapel is empty. The rows and rows of empty wooden pews leading up to the gilded altar, the most ornate and luxurious part of the church's interior, confirm it. Her boots create muffled sounds mimicking what steps should be against the cold marble floor of the middle aisle, as her eyes wander upward to the ceiling, taking in the stretches of multiple grand arcs resting on pillars, and the chilly warmth of the sunlight passing through the windows.

It's beautiful; and to think she had failed to take it in the first time she was here to pay her respects to Father's—

She stops in the middle of the church as the tears prick her eyes again.

No, she came here to let go. She didn't expect the effects immediately, but she needs to start.

She takes a single step forward, swallowing the tightening in her throat, and feels the salt air waft through the church. Her eyes remain focused on the crucifix towering above the altar table, as she undoes the red scarf around her neck.

She can almost hear Father's voice. _Sing something for me, Little Lotte._

Her eyes shut and her hands clutch the worn fabric of her scarf. She instantly knows the song that first comes to mind, and she can almost hear the sounds of his violin playing the smooth glissando chords. His favourite for the many chord changes, and the last song she sang to him before they lowered him into the earth.

_"Ave Maria…"_

There it is, echoing around her: the voice she thought she had lost forever in the pits of her despair. Though the tears threaten to come, they don't come out of sadness, but out of joy. Her gift of music wasn't lost.

_"Jungfrau mild!  
__Erhöre einer Jungfrau Flehen,  
Aus diesem Felsen starr und wild.  
Soll mein Gebet zu dir hin wehen."_

She sings without the accompaniment of music guiding her, knowing full well that her voice itself is an instrument that could carry itself across the seas, if she might will it to. Father had always instilled that confidence within her, and it can't wane in his absence. Not when he had always believed in her, when she never could believe in herself on her own. She lets the minor notes carry her voice into transitioning, careful not to let the closing of her throat affect her vibrato.

_"Wir schlafen sicher bis zum Morgen,  
Ob Menschen noch so grausam sind.  
O Jungfrau, sieh der Jungfrau Sorgen,  
O Mutter, hör ein bittend Kind!"_

She once asked Father what the lyrics meant, when he was teaching her to sing it. He simply smiled from his old armchair, violin and bow in one hand and his other combing its fingers through her long blonde hair. _It's a prayer to the Virgin Mary,_ he said. The singer asks for strength, for freedom from despair, for her to answer your prayers.

_"Ave Mari—"_

"Excuse me, angel."

What should have been a low, velvety whisper is amplified by the acoustics of the church, abruptly cutting her off.

She whirls around to be met with the shadow of a man standing a few strides away from the door.

Even from the distance that separates them, she can see that the figure is tall and dark, dressed in black from head to foot, not an inch of skin to be seen. As one of his gloved hands reaches up to remove his hat, the shadows move to reveal dark hair neatly parted and slicked, and golden-olive skin across streamlined, angular features; at least, what should be visible of _half_ his features, if not for the white mask that cut a diagonal line across his face, covering his nose and grazing past his upper lip to hide whatever should lie beneath the right side of his visage.

But she remembers those eyes (or what she could guess of the one hidden beneath the mask), a strange colour that looked almost whiskey-like when she saw them first those weeks ago.

The masked stranger at the funeral.

Her eyes immediately pry away from his gaze; she can't be caught staring! But, to be fair, he was staring too, looking like he didn't mean to say what he just said out loud and it just somehow slipped.

When she slowly takes him in, what's visible of his face flushes. Then it returns to her, that he had called her an angel, and her face burns in a blush as well. Both in embarrassment and something else, something that—dare she admit it—kind of _enjoyed_ being called an angel by a voice that sounded too magnificent to be real.

"I'm sorry," she manages; before she can even think of how to act, she storms back the way she came, towards the exit behind him. "I-I'll be on my way, Monsieur, I didn't mean to intrude."

He throws his hands before him, as if trying to calm down an agitated animal, and his voice quickly shifts into a plea. "No, wait."

She stops in her tracks just as he halts his speech. They lock eyes again, and a shiver of a feeling like both fear and awe creeps up her spine when she realises she has to crane her neck a bit simply to regard him. As towering as his height might render him him, the constant movement of his long fingers around the brim of his hat in his hands, the hunch of his shoulders and the manner in which he lowers his head all seems to point to the fact that he doesn't want to be here just as much as she doesn't.

The silence of the church seems to echo loudly around them.

"I…" he begins again, and once she finds herself paying close attention to the way enunciates even a single syllable, embarrassment floods over her in waves. "I've… never heard anything like your voice. You _must_ be an angel, God-sent, anything… _anything_ that could possibly begin to explain how enchanting that sounded."

She doesn't fight the flustered smile that spreads across her face as she casts her eyes down. "Thank you, Monsieur, really, but I'm sure you've heard better."

At that, his awe turns stern, a brow creasing over half a frown as his lips press into a thin line; a shiver of trepidation crawls up her back, in the fear that she said something wrong. "I understand, Mademoiselle, the need to humble your talents, but a gift like yours cannot be abased. I speak only the truth when I say that I have never heard anything more beautiful."

And with those words, he renders her blushing and speechless. _Protesting is useless,_ she realises, a gulp goes down her throat before she can respond meekly. "Thank you."

"Mm," he hums thoughtfully, and though the distance parting them is measured in strides, she feels frighteningly close to him now. "Who taught you how to sing?"

The answer is immediate. "My…" and then she trails off, and the answer is not as immediate as she thought. "My father."

She can feel his eyes boring into her, a look that is part pity and part scrutiny that she dislikes, veiled through his stoic expression. "You're Gustave Daaé's daughter."

She nods, swallowing her tears, suspicion replacing her fluster.

He offers a simple bow of his head in return. "My condolences."

She smiles weakly, but finds exhaustion in it. "Thank you." How many times has she said this throughout the conversation? Her eyes narrow. "You were there, at the funeral."

He nods his head once.

In a boldness unlike her, she takes a few steps forward. "How did you know him?"

He pauses, as if recounting a memory, but she can't seem to read his visible expression. (Against her better judgement, it may have been rude to stare at what remained of his face, but she couldn't seem to help herself.) "I was the one who brought him to the hospital, and the last man to have conversed with him before he fell unconscious."

The memories don't feel painful anymore; they feel dull. "You were the man with him in the ambulance."

"Yes."

She lets a breath go. It shouldn't hurt this much anymore, but the pain still feels a little bit more raw.

"He instructed me to seek you out," he continued. "It regards something urgent."

She can already guess; perhaps a late will, or another box of memories she needed another three weeks to open. "What is it?"

A weight that hadn't been there before accompanies his already deep voice. "You're in grave danger."

Silence fills the air again in the wake of what he said and in her failure to respond. Really, how _can_ one respond to that?

"Danger?" she parrots.

He lets out a sigh, as if he had been preparing for this conversation but still didn't know his way around the words. "I know how strange and terrifying this may seem to you, but I urge you to leave Perros-Guirec with me as soon as you can. It's already been too long as it is, and it isn't safe for you here."

The sensation of freezing water being poured over her head can't compare to the rush of confusion that drenches her. "I'm so sorry, Monsieur, but I don't understand a word of what you're saying. This is all so sudden, and I don't know you—"

"Which is why I implore you to, at the very least, consider what I'm saying, and who sent me."

She presses her lips into a thin line. Father always had her best interests at heart. This, she knows; more than their love for music, more than anything. If this masked man was really sent by her father to take her away from a potential danger he couldn't tell her about, who is she to deny what he wanted for her? It was _Father,_ he could have had his reasons for secrecy, and maybe now, even from beyond this life, he was still asking her to trust him.

But doubt is swift in its job, and corrupts what's there.

"This is… too much to take in right now, Monsieur, please," she says, fear gripping her voice as she shakes her head. "Give me some time to think about it."

"We've wasted as much time as it is," he retorts, impatience eating at his tone.

The blade of his voice there cuts deeper than she let it, but it won't faze her. She stares back up at him, and eventually, he exhales softly.

"One day," he says finally. "I'll give you one day. If not, I'll seek you out and ask you again."

She knows a day isn't enough, but he doesn't seem like the type to argue once his proposition is set on the table. "Fair deal."

He places his hat back on his head, then walks to the exit of the chapel almost soundlessly, like a ghost. "Until then, angel."

Despite herself, she still blushes. "It's Christine."

Half of his tall body is already out the door, but he stops moving to catch her words.

"Very well… Christine." He tastes her name on the velvety tones of his diction, and she finds herself smiling.

He huffs out a breath, nods once, then the door closes raucously, the reverberation shuddering throughout the church and leaving her alone once again. It takes a few moments for her to ground herself. As baffling as that encounter may have been, one thing he said didn't seem right: he said he'd _seek her out and ask her again._

Strangely enough, she feels no more nervousness, as if those glances over her shoulder had been nothing but a thing of the past, like he had pulled them along with him.

_He. Him._

She groans and covers her flushed face; she had forgotten to ask for a name.

* * *

She gives a forced smile to the cashier once she takes her plastic bag, surprised to find it light in her hands despite the three packs of instant ramen and a litre of bottled water. Exiting the store and adjusting her scarf around her neck, she pulls out her phone from her pocket to check the time: 9:43PM.

Already this late? She pockets her hands and tucks the plastic bag into the crook of her elbow as she makes the walk home.

Did she really spend that much time wandering around Perros-Guirec? The day seemed to go by so quickly; perhaps it's just that she barely noticed it. It was as if she'd been a tourist again, seeing the small seaside town with fresh eyes, her father's hand clasped in hers while his other held onto the case of his violin. On their first day here, she remembers fondly how he allowed her to roam the square on her own, dealing with any sort of trouble she might have gotten into as she ran up the trees and the statues in an effort to see the beach just a walk away.

"We can see the beach when the sun sets," he had told her to quell her excitement.

He kept that promise. It had been that sunset view which made her so fond of Perros-Guirec's shoreline, the way the yellow rays of the dying day reached across the water, turning the sky pink and a lazy orange, and the sensation of the rising tide against the smooth skin of her calves. If she missed something other than her father in her first few weeks at the Conservatoire de Paris, it had been those twilights.

Above the roofs of the town, the sky had turned from a hazy rose colour to a deepening midnight blue. The lights of the sleepy neighbourhood are dim enough to allow the stars overhead to twinkle brightly. On a normal day, she would come home to see her father tuning his precious violin, laughing at the fact that she had probably chosen the wrong noodles, but he would ensure her that the flavour was fine and they'd laugh about it together.

She sniffs back the stuffy feeling in her throat and wipes her cheek with her wrist. _One night at a time_.

She takes the leftmost street at the rotunda in the town square, mindlessly watching a couple return to one of the many hotels in the area. A quick glance to the road on her right reveals the lavish vacation homes of the affluent; as the years living here made her note, Perros-Guirec is a tourist town, where many of the noble and upper-class of Paris and other urban areas travel to spend their peaceful vacations. But since it isn't peak season, that side of town looks almost abandoned, with the occasional living-in maid or butler stepping outside to turn off the porch lights.

She takes a right, still on one of the main streets cutting diagonally across the blocks. The streetlamps overhead illuminate the quiet roads, with only a few passerby on the sidewalks as her sole company. Two more turns until she's home.

She crosses the street despite the red pedestrian light, then her gaze absentmindedly wanders over to a man in a dark grey coat at the end of the block, lighting a cigarette. He locks eyes with her, his gaze steeled and menacing, as if warning her not to come closer. A nervous shiver crawls up her spine, and she looks away as her feet pick up a faster pace.

Which way now? And why did she act so afraid? _He_ was the one blocking the way home. She tells herself to breathe, it's fine; she can go around the block and walk back from the other end of the street.

She tries to follow through with her plan and turns down another main avenue, but this one is emptier, a deathly silence settling over for it, a quiet too much even for Perros-Guirec. She fights the urge to glance back, instead bowing her head so no one can see her face as she pulls the scarf higher over her nose and mouth. But that unsettling feeling doesn't seem to leave; that if she looks behind her, even just for a moment, the shadows would be there to grab her and clamp her screams shut.

A dread plants itself over her lungs and quickens her breathing, warming her face with each panicked exhale. It would look too suspicious to run, so the best she can do is stick to walking as fast as she can. Her eyes tentatively shoot up to read the street signs.

And then something approaches behind her, this time far too close to her body, tall enough to cast a long shadow over the pavement in front of her.

She flinches when a cold grip rests on her shoulder and a dark mass presses itself to her side. As panic seizes her body, her eyes widen, the palpitations thumping loud against her ribcage, but her feet refuse to stop. _Should she scream? Run? _Shove this culprit away from her, then flee to the nearest house for help and pray that they aren't fast enough—

"Hello, angel," a voice whispers low in her ear, breath grazing over her cheeks all but briefly. "Don't look behind you."

She knows that voice (and somehow, even in her panic, wishes to know it more). The masked stranger.

Against his command, she briefly glances over her shoulder to see three men wandering around the corner of the street she left behind, leaning against walls and lights, but still keeping their dangerous eyes on her.

"I said: _don't look behind you."_

She whips her head back to stare at the ground, still walking. Her fear seems to dwindle and worsen at the same time, but it doesn't disappear entirely. For all she knows, the masked man could have been one of those shadows in the dark she dreaded had been watching her over the past few weeks, or one of the men following her in the night. In an impish act of disobedience, she brings a glance upwards and sees the wide brim of his fedora, and the sleek lines of a white mask underneath the layers of his scarf. When those eerie eyes move to her, she looks away.

She gulps audibly. "What—"

"Ask questions later," he cuts her off.

His grip loosens and moves down ever so slightly, to the point where her shoulder meets her arm, and it hovers, fingers light over the fabric of her coat. It strikes her, suddenly, that her height had made it somewhat of a chore for him to lean down earlier, seeing as how the top of her head barely leveled with his own shoulder.

"Where do you live?" he asks, in a language that isn't French.

She takes a moment to blink in shock, and lets her eyes rise to meet his casual expression.

"You speak Swedish," she says in her native tongue, more to herself than to him, as though reassuring herself of that fact.

His brow twitches, unamused, and he continues in the language with fluency like he's been speaking it all his life. "Yes, among many others. Again, angel, where do you live?"

Still dumbfounded, she hesitates for a moment before leaning beneath the shadow of his tall form, looking to the left corner ahead. Should she tell him? Or is this one in a series of careless mistakes? "Just after this turn here, second building."

He moves her along, hastening her pace as her strides struggle to keep up with his long ones. They turn the corner she dictated, and she attempts to spare a glance back at the street corner where she saw the three men earlier, but can't get the chance as the turn obscures her view.

They walk along a few houses until she points at one of the thinner buildings. "This one."

He doesn't let go of her shoulder until they're safely at the doorstep to the apartment complex, and she may as well have nearly stumbled out of his touch onto the stairs leading up to the first floor. She straightens herself on the flight, gazing back at his unreadable expression. There's still a grace to his movements as he adjusts his hat only slightly, tilting it at an angle that allows the lamplight above to illuminate the dark lines of his frame with an eerie yellow glow.

She walks up three steps up from the pavement, but much to her dismay, her height only levels with his own. (He seems to have found it amusing, as his eyes seemed to dance with a humorous air. How irritating, that he finds hilarity in gaining some degree of authority.)

"So," she speaks sharply in her mother tongue, crossing her arms, "am I allowed to ask questions _now_?"

"That depends on whether the agents can understand Swedish," he returns. "Which I doubt, but I'm afraid we don't have the luxury of time."

_Agents?_ She shakes her head; this is getting more and more absurd with every minute. "At least tell me who they were."

"People interested in watching you." He pauses on the last word too abruptly, like he was going to say more but stopped himself. "Who would probably harm you, if they were given the chance."

The fact that she's confused slowly stirs up exasperation. "For what? Why me?"

He pockets his hands, which she notices, despite the fact that they felt like they were bare on her shoulder, are gloved. "For reasons that will take more than a sidewalk conversation to explain."

She huffs, annoyed and angry at herself more than at the situation. Maybe he's right, in saying that the story is far too complicated to unspool at the moment, but when will she ever get the chance to learn the truth? Has Father been keeping secrets from her, when she always thought that he trusted her with everything? That his life was her life too? Were all the memories they shared, then, built on lies?

She couldn't simply ask him now, when he's gone, when he's left her with only moments she has no choice but to now doubt. Sorrow and the fury behind it, as they had for these past weeks, build up in a mound at her throat.

"Once again," he continues, "I sincerely ask you leave Perros-Guirec with me when you can. It isn't safe for you here, and your father wanted you to—"

"What do you even know what my father wanted?!" she snaps.

"I don't," he retorts, in a tone that's too loud to be simple speech and too stern to be exclamatory.

She stops, watching his stoic expression for any change as the cold tears roll silently down her face. The rage slowly drowns in the tears that close up her throat and sting her eyes, forcing her to stand just as still as him. Her hand goes to furiously wipe her cheeks as she sniffs infuriatingly, regret filling the hole in her voice where ire once lay. How pitiful this must look to him.

"God," she works her words through her choked speech. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you."

He takes one step on the staircase towards her, a hand curling back and unfurling repeatedly, and from the expression on his face, he's both agitated and concerned at the sight of her, the same way one would regard a sobbing child.

"No, angel, please—" and he cuts himself off again, his hand just inches away from touching her forearm (and perhaps the most absurd thing about tonight was that if he did, she would let him).

"It's okay, really." She sniffs back her tears, and successfully wills the tears to stop. "You've done enough for me tonight as it is. I'm just tired, I guess."

"That and the fact that I was erroneous in expecting you to accept all this so easily."

She sniffs again when he expects a reply, and when none comes, he goes on.

"You're right, however. I _don't_ know your father, or what he wanted. I only know he made me promise to look after you once he learned he wouldn't make it, and against everything I have stood for all my life, I'm willing to keep my word. So please, I _pray_ you to come with me to Paris. I can protect you to the best of my abilities and find those who intend to harm you, but I can only do so there. If you require lodging, then I can arrange something for you."

"No need." The speed from her mouth surprises her. "I have someone I know there who's willing to provide me room and board."

His expression lights up with an optimism that wasn't there before. "So you'll come with me?"

She has to crane her neck a little to look into his eyes, and she finds herself mesmerised by the way the whiskey-hazel colour that almost seemed to change into an amber hue in the low light.

Is there really anything left here in Perros-Guirec that she'll miss if she goes? Memories of Father, perhaps, now that she'll be put through a test of trust, a childhood life that felt like so long ago, cold beaches, and the smell of the waves. These, and the danger she now knows has truly been following her. Her home had always been where Father was, and now home is where the last threads of his memory will take her.

She nods once. "I'll go."

He lowers his head as if in a bow of gratitude or in a silent sigh of relief, stepping back onto the sidewalk. "Good. We leave tomorrow morning."

Her eyes widen. "Tomorrow morning?"

"If those men stalking you tonight are indicative of anything, it means the longer we stay here, the worse the situation will become for you."

She could complain, but there's a sliver of sense to what he's saying. And now that misery clears itself from her mind with a shake of her head, and she begins to dig through her pockets. "Okay, I can, uh… give you my phone number, so you can contact me if you—"

"That won't be imperative, angel," he says quickly, almost nervously; he briefly glances at the building behind her. "If this is where you live, I'll see to it that transportation will be arranged for you by six o'clock tomorrow morning."

That sparks a hint of trepidation. "You're not coming over?"

"No, I'm afraid I have other arrangements to make, including but not limited to securing our train ride to Paris. As it's risky enough for you, I'll have you picked up by a chauffeur to bring you to the train station at Lannion, where I'll be waiting. Go with him _if and only if_ he tells you M. Séraphin sent him."

She doesn't hide the fact that her brows furrow.

Perhaps so few people in Perros-Guirec really recognised the name, but Father always had desired to learn more about the classical music industry that flourished in the city, and its prestige and revival were the results of only one man: an enigmatic genius of a composer who was only known to the public and the aristocracy of Paris by his surname, Séraphin. Critics consistently praised him for his innovative and stylised approach to orchestral compositions, rightfully placing him as one of the forefront champions of contemporary classical music in France.

But why _Séraphin,_ the composer? And one of the most obscure, at that? Is it a sort of code, or is the composer someone he's personally familiar with? She probably shouldn't ask him how he plans to do all this, but the confidence in his words quells her worries for now.

"Okay, I'll leave you to handle it."

Her arms stop winding around her, instead dropping to her side as she watches him, hoping to see him leave, but he still stands there, like a spectre or a shadow, his brow furrowing in an attempt to let words loose with care.

"Christine," he starts, "I know this is difficult for you, and what I need from you is something you can't easily give. I'm asking for too much of your trust, and I thank you for it; simple words of gratitude aren't enough. But I swear, when I get the chance, I'll explain everything within my ability."

She remembers that he's here because he's keeping his own oath to her father.

Her voice is fragile in her mouth. "Promise me?"

"I promise you."

The way the low song of his voice glides over those syllables might as well convince her to believe anything he ever said, entirely. She tugs at the bag of groceries at her arm, suddenly aware of its existence again. "Thank you."

"And thank _you_ for saving your own life." He puts the fingers of a hand to the rim of his hat, and bows his head. "I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight, angel."

With that, she watches from the entrance to her apartment as he walks into the night, the shadows of his coat slowly being swallowed up by the darkness.


	3. Flight

**Gotta explain the M. Séraphin stuff, right? Yeah, forgot about that.**

* * *

This accursed thing, a hurricane of feelings ready to rain their torrent of emotions into her mind, condensed into a single cardboard box barely as wide as her torso. With a half eaten ramen bowl at her side and the willpower she requires, she ponytails her curling hair and puts on her glasses, rolling up the sleeves of her sweatshirt to get to work.

During those long three weeks, she almost thought of this box as Father's grave, and to touch it would mean to disturb the peace she so desperately needed. The lawyers who had come to her house to discuss the particulars of Father's will bequeathed her all the possessions within it as her own, by French law. But it would mean dismantling the image of Father that her mind held, these childish dreams that wished to see sunsets with him forever and a day. But now, she must leave Perros-Guirec and her past with him behind, and such a farewell has something to do with him and the secrets he kept in life.

Now was the time to learn them.

With shaking hands, she lifts the lid off the box and places it down on the floor in front of her, where she's met with its smell first—a combination of mildew, dust, and old books—then its contents: multiple stacks of papers (bound and unbound), journal notebooks, and sheet music. They all seem more like the possession of a national archive that they do the last of Father's valuables.

It takes her another hour and the rest of her ramen bowl to sift through a quarter of it. Most of its contents are journals written in his childhood when he was still living with her grandparents, detailing memories she could never have expected her father to have carried: a difficult youth, the lack of interest the world had for music, life in Sweden as a lone teenager with nothing but his wits about him and an old violin, and the repeated tale of the Angel of Music.

The Angel had always been a staple tale for her. It was as if there was never a day he didn't tell her of what the Angel would do, how it would bless the most fortunate of children to give their music to the world. He had used it as a story to explain how her voice could have been so beautiful at such a young age, and why his love for the violin went unmatched by anyone they'd ever met. When he would go, he said one day, he would send the Angel to her.

She closes the journal she was reading remembering that moment, and gives it the necessary moment of silence.

Most of the documents to follow don't spark much interest: deeds to lands that were no longer his, large collections of sheet music that have yellowed and frayed at the corners, notebooks regarding different purchases and budgetary funding, deeds of sale to multiple fiddles and violins, and other miscellaneous finds: a marriage certificate, a will that wasn't under his name, and old, sepia photographs of the young man he'd been when he was still living in Sweden.

One of the last things she uncovers is a small, black box with a paper fastened beneath the string that held it tight. She unties the knot and opens it to reveal a thin, rod-like pendant at the bottom of the box, glinting like the brightest silver whenever it hit the light. She fastens the thin black string around her neck before her hands unfold the paper that accompanied it.

_My dearest Little Lotte,_

_If you receive this gift, it means that I've allowed you to trust me, and you have allowed yourself to welcome my trust. There are dark times ahead, and it is necessary now that I cannot keep you from my secrets any longer. Perhaps it was wrong of me to think I could shelter you from the evil of the world for as long as I could breathe and hold a bow like I hold your hand._

_Maybe, at this point, I have gone to join your mother, or maybe I am old and no longer remember any of the moments we had. I know I don't deserve you, my child, and every part of you, but God has gifted me with the wonderful presence of you, and know—no matter what the circumstances are in your time, and what has become of me—that I love you._

— _Father_

She can't stop the tears from flowing now, but a relief surges through her body, like the way the sea would calm in slow intervals after a wild storm. And though she shakes with her sobs and Father's words begin to fog up in the lenses of her glasses, she has never felt more happy, that somewhere, somehow, he is still with her.

She presses a fervent kiss to the letter, and lets her tears stain the ink.

* * *

He leans back in his chair and stares blankly at his laptop. Despite the white glow the screen gives off, the room is dim, lit only by the bedside lamp as the sky outside his window begins to lighten to the soft blue hue of an early morning. His Stradivarius and its case rest on the luggage stand, a throne worthy of such a prestigious instrument. Despite his prolonged stay in the inn, the room looks just as pristine as it had been when he arrived, with the sheets folded neatly over the duvet and the pillows barely creased. Whatever sleep he was blessed with was invested in naps that lasted for a few hours over the armchair.

He picks up his phone from the table and the time flashes briefly, the midway minutes through four in the morning.

As he sifts through the emails from his old correspondence, he concludes them as numerous but useless; there's barely any word of the Guarneri or an exchange made of it through any of his past clients. To think that with all the hands he shook—hands tainted in sin, invisible blood, and spoiled with all the riches the criminal world could offer—there would have been at least a mention.

_It's been nine years. Things change. They may not even remember everything._

He wipes the left side of his face in an effort to rub away the fatigue pooling in his bones, and he's careful not to let his bare hands touch the marred flesh of the rest. When he closes his eyes, heaviness settles over his features, and a thread tugs at the back of his mind coaxing him to the surrender of slumber, cradling him with the sound of a song.

The first thing that comes to his mind is a long-forgotten melody, a prayer of strength and fortitude granted by the Virgin Mary to those who seek her guidance. He sees nothing, feels nothing but that melody: a graceful creature so alive, so full of hope and longing for life, that soars above the clouds aloft on angel's wings. It envelops his soul; gently swirling over his body, wrapping him in a euphoria nothing on earth could have given him. If heaven exists, this is what it would sound like, what the sensation of it would _feel_ like; if light could be tangible, if humanity could taste the very essence of salvation, in dipping slides of glissando notes and heavenly sighs. He hears it clearly, the echoes of Scubert's _Ave Maria—_

The air flies out of his lungs instantly. His eyes shoot open as he hangs over his desk, a shaking hand over his heart, stuttering at a pace too quick for his body.

_No; it can't be._

He regulates his breath's shattered rhythm, and sighs once it slows down to a gradual pace, grounding his nerves before standing up from his chair. It's rather difficult to ignore the surge of relief and dizziness that comes after a prolonged period of rest.

_An angel._

He can pry through any sort of explanation his mind is willing to offer him, but the long hours into the night spent thinking about her prove all attempts at justification useless. There's no possible reason he deserves to hear her voice, in this godforsaken life he's been damned to live in. At this point, he'd half expected the world to have robbed him of such a wonder in any form; she could have hated him, refused to speak to him, lied or cheated her way out of any of the conversations they had, but no. Even more than that, she chose to _trust_ him.

_The death of a man can't be an excuse to get closer to his daughter._

He huffs, striding towards his luggage. He doesn't even have a choice in the matter, at the moment. He may as well have honour-bound himself to the oath this Gustave locked him into, but his efforts are for her more than they will ever be for him. Her father left her alone in this world, with men hunting her down for a secret she isn't even aware she keeps. There have been darker, bloodier family squabbles before, and he's been the executioner to those feuds and battles in multitudes. But this one feels different; less of an obligation and more of closure, an opportunity to finally let that past lie in the grave he made for it nine years ago, where it should be left to rot.

_But what's the benefit of doing all this?_

He stops rummaging through his belongings once his fingers brush the small case. He never gave much thought to that; is this that point where his actions should now go beyond selfishness? What sort of power coaxed him into even _thinking_ that none of this would be for him?

_Oh, to hear her voice again._

He takes the case and places it on the bed, putting on his gloves and feeling his fingers through the leather before clicking open the latches. It haunts him: a sound like a ghost that lingers in the silence, like the voice from a heaven he's forbidden from entering. In that case, he isn't wrong to call her after such a celestial being.

_Her name: Christine. A song._

He lifts a pistol from the case, feeling the heavy, familiar weight of the weapon wrapped by his fingers, and it's as though even his gloves can't prevent the cold metal from seeping into his skin. Taking the magazine from the container, he carefully slides it into the slot. A sensation washes over him, a feeling he once thought he had left in the ashes, and he pictures himself: a conductor standing with a baton in his hand, ready to perform for a crowd grateful to listen to the music they _choose_ to listen to. Bodies falling, the rush of blood, the burst of fire, sirens, and the clinks of champagne glass in the wake of destruction. And while he is the conductor to this symphony, all great, lost performances must be revived, first, with the beginning piece.

He readies himself for the familiar sound, and he pushes the magazine into the gun, the sound of clicking when he pulls the fastener resounding loud in the quiet of the room.

Death's overture, and he, its composer.

* * *

True to his word, there had been someone there at her door when six in the morning hit: a chauffeur driving a car with the name of an inn across town written as a sticker across its doors. He had offered to help with her luggage, claiming he had been sent by M. Séraphin to drive her to the train station at Lannion. And even as they began their journey and the scenic view of this seaside town rolled by, she can only feel the residue of fear. There are people watching her, looking to harm her, and it's best to stay careful. Of course, the very reason she's with a stranger right now instead of the masked man is solely because he wanted the safest avenue, or whatever he said could be the safest one. There had always been a degree of confidence to the way he planned out today that gave her some assurance, however little.

A pity, though; that just like that, in a rather depressing lack of ceremony, she's leaving Perros-Guirec behind.

Little was done to entertain her on the way to the station, which the driver said was thirty minutes away. There were periods of her dozing off, watching the countryside of France roll by, or scrolling on her phone to condolence wishes on social media she was certain she'd grow tired of hearing. Thankfully, the driver didn't seem to want to initiate more conversation about M. Séraphin, or why such an esteemed and aloof man would be asking for her.

She keeps forgetting to ask for his name. If she fails to ask him a third time, his name might as well be Séraphin anyway.

All the doubt drains from her, however, when the car suddenly lurches to a stop, interrupting her sleep-addled thoughts. In her failure to notice her surroundings, her mind realises that they had pulled up at a small train station bustling with the usual morning foot traffic. Before she can inquire further of the driver, he gets out of the car and starts talking to a tall man, dressed in black, who had apparently been waiting outside for some time.

A burst of recognition pierces her thoughts and she opens the door of the car, stepping out to see the driver thanking the man she'd entrusted her safety to. He must have been cloaked in every dark layer of clothing he owned, and she particularly notes that the half of his face that's visible despite the mask can hardly be seen behind the hiked up scarf and the brim of his hat, much like he appeared the night before.

He tips the driver a sum more than fair as the latter of the two thanks him and departs with a simple nod of his head in her direction, and what seems like a wary eye. Once he steps into the car, it speeds off into the distance, leaving her with the company of someone she should know more of, but continues to know less and less.

"Good morning, angel," he starts, even as her eyes remain fixed on the car moving away. "I hope the ride here wasn't troublesome for you."

She tries to hide the fact that she lets out a breath. Only one night ago she'd heard that voice, and yet what a relief it brings her just to hear it again.

"I suppose I'm still a bit tired," she admits.

Her gaze moves back to him as he stacks both of their overnight bags on top of her suitcase, then draws the handles of them up in a long-fingered hand and pulls them towards her. "Forgive me, then, for asking you to wheel these for us. It will only be until we get to the cabin."

She takes their combined luggage, noticing that among his own is a violin case. "That's fine. Oh! I also brought some of father's things, I couldn't leave them behind—"

He picks up the box of Father's memorabilia with an ease that makes her blink in surprise. She'd had trouble getting it onto the floor of her living room, and he carried it off like it was nothing.

"Now," he huffs, "we must depart. Quickly."

Before she can even register the command, he's already striding towards the main hub of the train station and she's forced to keep up. And while the morning has certainly been one of confusion, the disadvantages piling against her don't make it any more pleasing; the fact that she struggles to match the pace of his long strides, all while pulling along a suitcase with three large bags piled on top of it.

But it's the question of this man, his identity, and all that lies before her that truly nags at her intuition, urging her to reconsider even as she barrels after bustle of the train station doesn't seem at its peak, with only strands of crowds passing along the gates and upon benches. A line hasn't even formed at the ticket counter, but upon entering the station, the man beside her changed: a bit more on edge, frightened and turning his head at nearly every movement in the corner of his eye, as he directs them through the space with an furious speed.

They come to a halt right in front of the electronic board that lists all the departure times and their corresponding destinations. He puts the box down before frantically reaching into his coat to take out two slips of paper to compare them to the numbers. A moment later, they're walking again.

"Wait, I need to know," she manages when she catches up to him at last. "Are you _really_ M. Séraphin?"

He hesitates with a slight misstep before he answers, and recovers just as quickly. "Yes, and no."

She's about to prod him further when he holds up a hand. "Why don't you sit down with our luggage, angel? I'll be with you shortly."

Without waiting for her to respond, he places the box on a vacant chair then walks off in the opposite direction. Piling the bags on top of one another, she finds her place next to the box, attempting to get comfortable in the cold steel chair, as the clock hanging from the web of a rooftop reads 6:37 in the morning. Watching the seconds fly by makes her realise how long they can actually be.

It still isn't enough, but his cryptic 'yes and no' answer would explain the violin case, at least. Perhaps it would also begin to explain the strange behaviour Séraphin was known for. If people didn't know him for his music (which would be odd, as his name had almost become synonymous with the industry he pioneered), they would know him for his secluded, hermetic lifestyle. Despite his unusual reach of fame, no photograph of his face existed, no interviews were ever conducted, and there were even theories to doubt his existence, prompting that he was merely a persona conjured up in a publicity stunt by a group of anonymous musicians. Whatever people's opinions of him were, there had been no denying he was one of the more influential and infamous among Paris' upper class.

_The mask, the odd dodgy demeanour with the media, the lack of a visual reference_… the pieces fit almost too well.

She's about to phrase the request for him to explain more when he returns with two more slips of paper and a bag sticker for a fragile object, which he then proceeds to wrap around the handle of the violin. Perhaps she hadn't seen it earlier because it was strapped to his back, but a chord of awe washes over her when he tilts the case to reveal its label.

"That's a Stradivarius," she thinks aloud.

He looks at her, then at the case and adjusts the buckles and straps holding it shut. "Is this your first time seeing one?"

She shakes her head, but it still feels unreal. She had seen her own share of antique and precious violins during her time in the Conservatoire, and listened to _Le Reyner _when it visited the university, but this one isn't kept behind glass, or being held by white gloves.

"Is it on loan?" she asks.

He slings it over his shoulder. "No, it's mine."

God, and she _looked_ at it like it was just a normal violin. "You _bought_ a Stradivarius?"

He picks up the box, looking around the station with a sudden edge to his tone. "If you're so keen on listening to that story, I suggest we move now, lest we won't get the chance to any longer."

The amazement in her voice corrupts itself with worry. "Why? Is something—"

But she doesn't get the chance to finish what she's saying before he begins walking off without her. This exasperation with his avoidance of her queries starts to sew some seeds of doubt where they shouldn't be, and she has to now bring up old reassurances to keep her faith from wavering. This is what Father needed for him to do, to keep her safe; there are people after her and this man is the only person who can get to the bottom as to why.

Once they reach the tollbooth, he reaches out to scan the barcode of the ticket against the reader when an attendant stops them. He may as well have grabbed his wrist from the way he visibly flinches when he gestures for them to halt where they stand.

"Excuse me, Monsieur," the attendant says in a practiced tone, "the toll booths will open at 7:30."

Her companion seems to freeze after he tilts his head down, and though look in his eyes seems calm, it's obvious to her that somehow, this employee caught him off guard. In a manner that tries too hard to be nonchalant, the masked man gives the slips to attendant, his fingers as far from the receiving edge as possible.

"I trust you'll allow early accommodations for more privileged guests?" he says rather slyly.

The attendant takes the slips of papers from him, as if he's ripping it from the other's hands, but upon reading them, his eyes visibly widen, glancing back and forth between her, the tickets and the masked man, the latter of the three already impatient.

"Well?" he asks, holding out his hand. "May we?"

"Yes—of course, Monsieur," the attendant replies with a respect that hadn't been there before.

The tickets are handed back and the attendant gestures for them to walk towards the gates, whereupon the the man promptly swipes the barcode across the scanner for each of the papers, allowing the two of them to step through the toll.

The platformed area of the station looks much emptier that the outside, with guests already lining up towards one of the trains headed towards Calais, from the reading of the overhead sign that blinked upon the departure label. The other train on the track, with the digital board over it labelled with Paris, lays quiet like an almost dormant creature. Perhaps it's the lack of people noticing him, but he seems to be much calmer now, even going as far as to adjust the tilt of his hat to stare upon their train. Maybe she should ask if he's scared of crowds, but there's a good chance he'd brush her off again, already adding to her plethora of exhaustion.

Any will to inquire dies once they begin walking towards the train doors before the conductor, whose stern look may as well have told them they weren't allowed on the premises. The masked man hands him over their slips, whereupon the conductor stares at them for a time, as if questioning their validity simply by looking at them. He then folds the dotted edges, tearing the area with the barcode away from the rest of it and handing him back the remains.

"This way, M. Séraphin," the conductor says promptly, stepping into the train.

The masked man allows her to move in first, helping her to hoist their heavy combination of bags over the platform gap into the corridor of the train. They're escorted down the thin carpeted hallway lined with multiple windows, into one of the many furnished, mahogany train cabins towards the very end of the car. It looks almost like something from a rich man's parlour, with a large cupboard, two beautifully embroidered couches leaning against the walls and nets overhead for luggage, with a slit between them in the wall for what she could assume is a foldable table.

She's overtaken with a strange amazement. Is this what first class looks like?

Regardless, her exhaustion propels her, without a second thought, to collapse onto one of the couches. Faintly, she hears the masked man and conductor converse at the door regarding something about extra guests and how long it would take them to get to Paris. She missed the number, but there was the mention of hours.

When the conductor leaves, the masked man steps in and closes the door behind him, finally doing away with his hat but only loosening his scarf in bits. He stands motionless for a while, but she could still catch the fact that he had been breathing too fast, and that perhaps his many layers look rather heavy on his frame now, with how troubled he appears to be. She should ask if everything is alright, but she knew he'd answer with something as cryptic as it would be infuriating.

She too unwinds the red scarf around her neck, maybe in a prompt for him to do the same. "How long until the train leaves?"

"An hour," he answers curtly, adjusting the layers of his loosened collar as he glances at the door again. "I'll check around to see if we were followed. Stay here."

She wants to protest for _him_ to stay and at the very least answer her without being evasive, but a wave of exhaustion takes her and nodding seems the simpler and easier answer. Without another exchange, he leaves her alone in the cabin, with no footsteps outside for her to follow.

Her frustration builds itself up into a loud groan, which she releases as she flops down on the couch. Nothing is making sense, and whatever pieces of the puzzle were given to her don't fit with one another. _Is_ he even M. Séraphin? Or perhaps M. Séraphin has a bigger part to play in this scheme and the masked man is only there to do his bidding? That wouldn't explain the Stradivarius… or would it? What is she even leaving Perros-Guirec _for?_ Is this all made up and she fell into a trap that she can no longer escape? Is this all a part of Father's plan?

She covers her face, and the darkness beckons to her, tugging at the fatigue she felt and amplifying it ten fold. The comfort of the couch's soft cushions envelop her, and she doesn't say a word as she drifts back into the comfort of a silent sleep these days of melancholy have rarely given her.

* * *

She wakes because the ground is shuddering.

With a soft groan, she rises from the couch she'd slept on and pushes the stray strands of hair out of her eyes, with her hair down and horribly ruffled, but her feet are lighter when she examines them because her shoes have been removed. The scarf that was wound around her neck is now bunched up under her head to act as a makeshift pillow. That, and the rather warm and welcoming edition of a black blanket covering her body, which she promptly lets fall to her waist when she sits up. Movement from the corner of the eye brings her gaze to the window of the cabin, where the French countryside of mountains and green fields that stretched on between the blur of trees whoosh by at a speeding pace.

"Ah, you're awake."

She follows the sound to see a figure standing to place a small case into the luggage nets overhead, his height impressively towering. She attempts to rub the sleep from her eyes as she shifts her position on the couch, heat rising to her face suddenly when she realises with apt shame that she had fallen asleep in the presence of a stranger with a mysterious demeanour and beautiful voice, who barely knew her.

"Do you drink coffee?" he asks, startling her again. "There are packets of them in the cupboard, and an electric kettle I can set up."

She shakes her head, her vision still clearing.

He takes a seat in the chair in front of her. Perhaps it's a bit wrong to think of the way that his limbs seem too long to be positioned comfortably when he does, but they manage with a grace she should expect from him at this point.

She blinks back her flustered expression when she notices the bulk of his black trench coat was gone, and converted into the blanket she now pulls across her shoulders. Now, without this and the scarf to cloak him in shadow, she can see in the daylight the full detail of the black-tie ensemble he wore underneath it: every crease in his slacks, the long sleeves of his suit jacket, and the high collar of his pristine dress shirt. Even as he sits down, she finds herself ashamed to watch the way his hands unbutton his blazer to allow him ample room to relax comfortably. The gloves, however, remain. As does the ultimately distracting outline of the mask that obscures half his face.

Odd, how he now appears to be nonchalant in speech and relaxed in posture, when the last time she saw him he had been on edge, as though touching his shoulder would have caused his head to hit the ceiling. Perhaps there was a threat that needed to be taken care of earlier and he couldn't tell her, unless he wanted to worsen the situation by making her panic? Or maybe his comfort had to do with the amount of people in the room, and that the less there were, the better: a strange thing she could relate to.

"You were asleep for an hour and a half," he says, answering the question she didn't ask. "Which means we have four more until we reach Paris. That should be enough time to explain everything to you, as I promised."

She takes her scarf from her side and bundles it up in front of her, watching as her hands bury themselves under their layers.

_As he promised._

He leans back, crossing his long legs as a hand falls into his lap and the other gestures openly, unfurling outward in an incredibly fluid motion. "Come now, angel; I'm sure you have questions for me."

With her mind slowly waking, she remembers the source of her anxiety throughout the past evening, and it seems necessary that she bring it up with him now. "I'd like to know more about the men that are after me. _Why_ they're after me."

He pauses to find the proper words, then he leans forward, posture still elegant and keen, before speaking.

"A few years ago, your father came into the possession of the 1744 Cantabile, which is perhaps one of the most prized instruments in history. It's been said that the rosewood it's crafted from produces a clean, clear sound most violins are unable to make. Its value lies in the fact that it's allegedly the last violin made by Guiseppi Guarneri."

She's heard that name before. "The luthier. They said Paganini's most favoured violin was a Guarneri."

The look that crosses over his eyes is one both somewhat surprised she knew, and pleased she did. "Correct. And much like Paganini, your father, by luck, became a man in possession of such an instrument. I've been under the suspicion that he didn't suffer from intestinal problems, as the post-mortem details have concluded, but that he was poisoned. The same men responsible for his assassination now seek you out, under the impression that as with all of your father's possessions, this one is yours by right. They want it instead."

She tries to process all the information without falling apart. She could have never thought of her father owning such a valuable instrument; she'd never even imagined her father owning a Stradivarius!

And he was _murdered._ She feels the blood run from her face and a pang of nausea hits her, worsened by the lurching of the train speeding past the landscape outside. To think there were people who detested the fact that her father was alive, to the point that they would kill him, for a violin whose worth he probably didn't even care about.

The words sound numb leaving her. "How much is it worth?"

He blinks, as if to calculating this in his head. "Would you like me to be blunt with you, angel?"

That means it must have been staggering. She nods, determined.

"Twenty-five million dollars."

If she had not been sitting, she would be now. Even in her position, she feels her legs tremble, and the very pillars of her soul weaken and crumble into ashes. The filter that had passed thoughts from her mind to her mouth lifts.

"My father… was assassinated," she begins slowly, and when he nods, a choking, indescribable pain cracks through her. "He was _assassinated._ For twenty-five million dollars."

"And there are people looking to harm you in the same way, just to get their hands on that violin. The moment he felt the poison that night, he knew that they were coming after him, and asked me to intervene. "

Fighting the tears welling up in her throat again proves to be exhausting. She sniffs once, but she forces it down out of shame. "But I don't know anything about this Cantabile. I don't know where it is. I didn't even know he—"

The abrupt press of a gloved finger to his lips cuts her off, followed by the laughter of a couple passing outside along the corridor. She flushes as his piercing gaze bores right through her, as if analysing her every move, and she whispers a quick apology for that silent reprimand.

_"You_ might not know," he says, voice barely spoken but not quite a whisper, as his eyes drift to look above her, "but your father's journals and instrument purchase history might be able to help us."

She follows his gaze up at the fastened box of documents, secured in the luggage net over her head. "It's too much. I spent the whole night going through those papers and barely got a quarter of it done."

"Well, you have me, and we have a few weeks. If your father was smart enough to understand that there were dangers that would haunt you in the event of his passing, he would know where to hide the Cantabile effectively enough to turn it into a scavenger hunt; and with you as his daughter, we have the advantage of a head start. As of the moment, it's a matter of us finding it first, and keeping you safe from them."

Her brows furrow. "Who's 'them,' exactly?"

He pauses, as if in a mild contemplation, but doesn't meet her eyes. "That, I'm still unsure of."

It seems like he doesn't want to be pressed further on that, with the reluctance in his silence.

"For what it's worth," he continues, a strange and genuine quality to his words, "the way you spoke about your father at the funeral gives me great hope. That souls who devote their lives and passion to music still exist, when I thought we were a dying breed. I'm sure he would rather see the Cantabile in hands like yours that would appreciate it for its true worth, instead of selling it to the highest bidder, twenty-five million be damned."

She feels light bloom in her chest. "You listened to my eulogy."

"Yes," he almost retorts, then again, a bit more calmly when their eyes meet, "yes, I did."

There's something unsaid there, being held back by a restraint, and she couldn't understand what he wanted to say or why he stopped himself. Despite the sorrow that continues to hang over her shoulders, a tiny flame of hope still burns bright in her, and it shows in a small, affectionate smile.

"My father would have loved to meet you, if I can speak for him."

He turns to her, as if waiting for an explanation, then it seems to have washed over him in slow, gentle waves. "He's heard of my work?"

"He's collected an album or two."

Something between a huff and a laugh leaves his lips, but it leaves in a split second grin she's sure she would have missed if she wasn't looking. "I'm sure he has the violin concertos."

She nods. "Yes, that one. He particularly liked the one in C minor, said it was difficult because of the key."

He sighs, drumming his fingers on his wrist in an absent-minded pattern too lazy and quick for her to comprehend; but she was still a violinist's daughter, and knows that in the absence of a fingerboard, one's own forearm would do.

"It's always the one in C minor, isn't it?" he muses aloud.

She's a little more curious now, unfolding her legs and placing her feet down onto the floor so she can inch closer to the edge of the couch. "Is that what I should call you, then? M. Séraphin?"

He chuckles—actually smiles and lets out soft peals of deep, dark hints laughter—and she finds herself taking note of the fact that this is the first time she had ever heard him laugh, like this is a moment she can't afford to forget, in its rarity. "I have far too many people calling me that already."

"So Séraphin _isn't_ your real name?"

His fingers curl gracefully when he brushes off her words, and she's disappointed that she didn't recall the motion of them in the detail they needed to be preserved in. "Whether it is or it isn't is irrelevant to me."

She stares at him for a time, and finds herself smiling at him, waiting for him to relent. "If you won't tell me yours, you'll have to deal with me calling you funny little nicknames every other day. Or Séraphin, because I can."

"No."

"'Music man.' I'll call you 'music man.'"

"Absolutely not."

Eventually, she tries her hardest to stare him down with a smile, to the point where he relents and mutters something under his breath she couldn't quite catch.

"Erik," he says, all too simply; when neither of them reacts immediately, he fills in the silence again. "And yes, that _is_ my real name."

"Erik." It sounds natural in her Swedish accent, even laced with French. "Why wouldn't it be? I think it suits you."

That seemed to have struck something in him, because his eyes veil what almost looks like hurt before his usual standoffish tone sets in. "In my lifetime, I find a plethora of things no longer benefit me, and thus, must be covered in secrecy. My real name remains one of these things."

She raises her nose high, challenging him. "Well, _I_ like it, and I'd prefer to call you Erik, solely because it's your real name."

He exhales, incredulous. "You and only two people on this godforsaken earth."

A hot flush sears her neck. Despite all of his layers of intrigue and mystery, he still let her in on the secret of his name. It felt intimate, almost. But a thought crosses her mind; she stops, and nothing else seems to exist but him and the sound of the train around them.

Maybe she should ask about the mask. It must be a rather heavy topic, and one that could prompt a long discussion, but he said they have enough time. Perhaps it's because they're being pursued and he can't afford to be recognised; after all, he knew about her attackers weeks before she did. But why _half_ his face? He was already willing to share his name, so maybe he'd be willing to share this part of him too. She musters up some courage and pushes away the fears lingering in her mind.

"So," she begins, "why do you wear a—"

"You can't ask about the mask."

That shatters any fortitude she holds, and he locks eyes with her in a way that made the colour of them even darker. The gravity that suddenly settles over them strikes a chord of fear within her.

"And why not?" she quips back, trying to hide the waver that clenched her voice. "There's no reason to—"

"You don't understand."

The warmth in his voice drains itself instantly. Not to mention that's the second time in a row he cut her off; and to think she mistook him for nothing but a mysterious yet dignified gentleman.

"Then _help me_ understand."

He shakes his head rather aggressively. "You _can't."_

"Why not?"

"It isn't that simple."

"And why wouldn't it be? It's just a mask."

The laugh he barks is a bitter, far cry from his chuckle earlier, and one that sends the hairs on the back of her neck standing on edge. "It's just a mask, she says. As if it's the most trivial thing in the world."

What was once confusion is now boiling into annoyance. "Well, _you're_ certainly not making it out to be something trivial, with the way you're acting."

He scoffs loudly. "Oh, so _I'm_ the one at fault here. Yes, let's ask the man in a mask why he wears one, despite his attempts to express his hostility towards discussing it. Perhaps you've forgotten what boundaries are?"

The harsh quality of his last sentence brings her anger to a halt and kills the retort on her tongue. She expected it, but the embarrassment in her actions grips her throat and tightens her lips.

His erect posture loosens as well, keeping his head lowered and his gaze turned away from her; maybe he didn't expect the words to come out that way as well, but at least that made two of them.

"At least explain why I can't ask." She sounds pathetic; she shouldn't even prod, but her desire to know burns through the shame. Then she adds, "Please."

The pause that follows may as well have killed any attempt to amend the situation. She clobbers an explanation as to why she wants to know from what she can recall, when he breaks the silence first.

"It's not a stylish choice," he starts, in a tone so aloof that his speech sounds practiced, "or a statement of fashion. It's there for practicality and for a reason that I will not discuss under any circumstances. You will not touch it, look underneath it, remove it, or ask about it again once I drop it from this conversation. Do I make myself clear?"

That's not at all a satisfactory answer, but the strained look in his eyes seems to plead for her to just say yes so they can be done with it. But she still doesn't move and he must have noticed; it's a prompt for him to continue.

"I've learned that if I don't stress this matter of grave importance, people will let their curiosity get the better of them. And I've made sure that such a curiosity is a dangerous thing to have. I pray you don't make the same mistake."

She forces a gulp down her throat, fearing to imagine just what he had insinuated. Though she would have wanted to learn more, she nods, and she notes the exact moment when the tension leaves his body.

"Thank you," he sighs.

The following minutes of quiet are loud and deafening, her face warm from the shame colouring her cheeks and her heartbeat loud in her chest. It feels _wrong_ for him to give her gratitude for relieving him of information she forced him to say. Just when she opens her mouth to apologise for overstepping, he gets up, fastening a single button over his suit jacket.

"I'll make coffee," he says.

And just like that, they're back where they started.

She doesn't respond, the occasional sounds of him rummaging through the cabin cupboards a welcome invitation to break the unwanted tranquility she brought upon them. Leaning onto the backrest of the couch, she stares out the window, losing her line of sight between the blurring trees.


	4. Pursuit

**So, yes. It's the update that's _months_ late. I told you this story has yet to go somewhere. **

**I got over a particularly difficult scene for me to write in the chapter after this, so that might mean more frequent updates. Don't take my word for it, though.**

**Special thanks to ****mostardents for doing the best and most patient job of beta reading this for me. Actually, this scene was very different in the first few drafts and it's thanks to her that it came out this good. Go read her story called _Contretemps,_ you'll be rewarded with some of the best, awkwardest, E/C content.**

* * *

"Wake up, angel."

She doesn't remember sleeping, and certainly for not long. Someone's hand is gently patting her own shoulder, rousing her from slumber as the dark corners of her vision begin to slink away, bringing into focus the tall form of the man in the mask who had been a subject for all her scrutiny and slight admiration these past twenty-four hours.

"Erik?" she mumbles, and she isn't so sleepy that she didn't notice how sharply his head turned when she mentioned his name. "What's going on?"

"We've arrived," he replies curtly. "Hurry, we mustn't dawdle."

She slowly sits up from her position on the couch, feeling her muscles untangle themselves from their knots as she reaches back to ponytail her hair. He had already donned his coat and taken down their luggage from the overhead nets and piled them in the same fashion as he did on the train, with the Stradivarius nestled between his legs and balanced carefully with the help of his hands.

As she's putting on her shoes, only now does she notice that the rumbling speed that the train was running at during their earlier conversation has slowed in pace, the mechanisms of the shuddering mass of it around her shifting only slightly as it moves to dock into the station. Outside the window, the idyllic countryside of France is replaced with the cold structure of a Paris train station: steel, criss-crosses of iron and flashing station signs.

A foreign fear settles in; the same one, she realises, caught her throat when she first arrived in the capital to study at the Conservatoire.

"How long was I out?" she asks, as she turns to see him checking his phone.

"About two hours," he says, switching it off and pocketting it.

She waits for him to continue, but he doesn't. Perhaps the conversation they had regarding his mask cut off any sort of cordiality they could have built, and the guilt grows much more painful the more she comes to her senses. That may have been a line she wasn't meant to cross (at least, in the short amount of time they knew each other), but even in the wake of her remorse, the lengths her curiosity is willing to go frightens her.

Instead, she catches herself staring at every minute change in his visible facial expression: every dent in his brow, twitch of his lip, narrowing of his eyes, and the flashes of feeling visible in the hue of his irises. When he glances back, she tears her sight away, burning at the thought that he might have been under the impression she was staring at his mask again. Maybe she had been, and doesn't like to admit it.

"What is it, angel?"

That voice still coerces her to glance back at him, where she's met with a questioning stare. When she doesn't respond immediately, his visible eyebrow shoots up, as if in a gesture to welcome her hypothetical query.

"Is something wrong?" she asks genuinely.

It seems to have done him in. He lets out a long sigh before leaning forward, voice dropping to a whisper.

"I'm under the assumption that we've been followed."

She feels the blood drain from her face. "What?"

He glances to the door quickly, as if to reassure that it's still there. "I've noticed a man always hovering around the corridor, in front of the room just three cabins down from us. Whenever I caught him, he was always looking in the direction of ours."

Her mind is buzzing with panic, scrambling for any reason. "He could just be someone from Perros, right? Who might know you, and was trying to ask for an autograph or something similar."

"He _could_ be."

His stress on the word amplifies the uncertainty already hovering about in the air, that the word 'could' denotes something of their outcome. She forces herself to swallow. If he was telling the truth, what could this man want from Erik? Or _her?_ God, what if he was one of the men who had been following her yesterday?

"If… " she starts, attempting to hide the quiver in her voice, "if he catches us—"

"Which will certainly _not_ be the case," he finishes, voice stern. "But if his presence should imply anything, it means that they've been expecting us to arrive in Paris. That's why the moment this train stops and the gates open, I'll need you to follow me and move as quickly as possible. Do you understand?"

She realises that the terror that paralyzes her prevented her from nodding her head when she thought she did, and she nods again.

"Good," he sighs, looking towards the suitcase and the stacked overnight bags. "I trust you'll take care of that."

Her reply is soundless when she rolls the handlebars closer to her, waiting for the inevitable.

Both of them can feel the train churn lazily, now at a snail's pace. Overhead, along the hallways outside, the train driver announces their arrival into the Gare Saint-Lazare, strictly instructing them to stay in the cabins until the vehicle stops. Trepidation hangs heavy in the air as they await the cue, and she makes an active effort not to stare at the man seated across from her. It's a task that proves to be difficult, especially when his hands fidget with the strap of the Stradivarius as if he's attempting to quell his own nerves, and they move with such a distracting fluidity. She still takes note of the underlying agitation that attempts to mask itself behind his stoic expression, and maybe it's the fact that he's been so confident about their advantage in this scavenger hunt this far, that the mere idea of his uncertainty is enough to scare her.

She watches as he regains his layers: first the winding scarf tight around his neck, like a cloth snake constricting his mouth, and the wide shadowy brim of his hat.

The train finally slows, then shudders to a stop.

The moment the chime of the announcement rings, Erik stands abruptly, prompting her to stand with the same speed, before he slides the door open. Securing the violin around his torso and taking Father's box from the floor under simply one arm, he moves quickly through the corridor just as the rest of the train begins to shuffle into a single file. Compared to his pace, other passengers move slowly towards the doors, and with many quickly whispered apologies, he cuts a straight line through the throng towards the exit of the train. Perhaps the proximity of their bodies should bother her, but wading through this many people surely bothers him more; she can tell by the stiff posture of his shoulders high above her that this isn't a situation he favours, either.

They exit the train just as the first wave of the crowd spills onto the platform, easily avoiding that visible obstacle as they quickly pass through the barred gates, despite the conductors and other staff members gazing with suspicion towards the two of them. She doesn't even have the time to absorb the busy air of Paris around her, but she does note however briefly how different the air feels from the rural disposition of Perros-Guirrec; the air here smells like caffeine, metal, and smoke, with cacophony filling every square inch of the space wherever any structure of person didn't stand in. The shops of brands she could never hope to afford, floors upon floors climbing higher up towards the skylight, straight lines and solid edges of glass, iron, and ceramic. She can't help but gawk at the intensity of the crowds, the movement of people, the symphony of the city noisy but harmonic, rising and rising.

Erik must have noticed her moment of stillness, because he quickly motions for her to finish after she stands for a second too long.

"Is this your first time in Paris?" he asks, turning a sharp corner into a thinner corridor with noticeably less people. There's that edge to his voice again, nervous and hurrying.

"No," she replies, careful to hide her suspicion as they turn another left. "I was here before. For four months."

"Four months." He glances behind them, to check if they're being followed; it's obvious he's only paying half of his attention to her, but the sting of betrayal is still audible in his tone, as if it's something she should have told him. "Doing what?"

The fact that he's acting like he was obligated to know stokes embers of anger in her chest. She hesitates to tell him, and her silence hangs heavy in the air, filled only by their footsteps as she notices with a chill that no one is with them in his hallway despite the amount of people earlier, even as they turn another corner.

"If you must know," she starts, "I was—"

A soft whiz that flies through the air chips a tile directly above her head, effectively startling both her and Erik. Before she can register what just happened, he pushes her and their luggage into the corner and he follows just as quickly, moving his back against the wall. She tries to calm her palpitating heart as he moves, peering over the edge to the end of the corridor.

"What was that?" she asks frantically, fear paralysing her.

"Something that nearly killed you," he answers, his sudden attention unnerving.

_Killed. She was nearly killed._ Her knees are suddenly weak.

"_Malak al-Mawt!"_ a man calls from the opposite side of the hall. "Show yourself, and the woman."

She tries to meet Erik's gaze in the hopes to be met with an answer. However, that strange phrase causes him to visibly tense up. Risking a quick glance underneath Erik's form to look at the end of the passageway, she sees a tall, thin man in a suit looking on, his alabaster gaunt face unmoving, a pistol in his hand.

"You nearly shot an innocent man, Monsieur!" Erik calls back.

Or, at least, she _thinks_ Erik calls back. His mouth was definitely moving, and the voice sounded vaguely his, but the heavy French seemed to be coming from the opposite end of the room. It's enough to force the man to glance behind him with furrowed brows. How was that possible, to place the source of someone speaking somewhere else?

"That won't work on me," the shooter responds. "We know all your tricks."

She can see Erik's expression grow cold in concentration. Is he looking for a way out?

"Angel," he says in his normal tone, quietly this time as he glances to the end of the hall they hide in, "I need you to check if that last doorway is clear and tell me where it leads to, but you must be quiet. Check and then come back."

Her mind scrambles for something, _anything._ "But what about you?"

He slowly brushes the edge of his coat aside, and worry strikes her chest again when she sees the edges of his gloved fingers hover over the outline of a pistol, sheathed by a harness in the many layers of his attire.

"Erik?" she nearly stammers. "Is that…?"

"It won't come to that. Go, I'll hold him off while I can."

She doesn't put much thought into what she's doing, letting apprehension and her waning trust in him guide her through the loud confusion in her head. She runs quietly down the hall and follows his instruction to the last doorway. Another silent gunshot goes off behind her, nearly letting a loud wince escape her throat if not for her trembling hand that covers her hard breathing.

"Stand clear," she hears the shooter's voice call out to Erik. "Let us have her and you'll go unharmed."

"I'm not one to make a bargain with," comes Erik's reply, as confident as it can sound to be.

She glances back at Erik, standing tall against the pile of luggage around his feet, his sheathed hands already reaching for the gun at his side. The look he spares at her from across their distance says it all: there isn't much time, and she can't afford to waste it.

"You are in no position to offer any alternatives, I'm afraid," the shooter returns.

"Who sent you?" Erik asks.

"An old friend. I'm sure you have many."

"Have they considered the fact that they sent you to your death?"

"At the moment, it doesn't appear so."

She reaches the door, fingers cold on the handle when she pushes a slit of the door open. The morning throng of another busy hallway of the station assaults her senses through that small gap, filling her with large baragges of noise, colour, and movement enough to make her face pale with intimidation. Multitudes crossing, walking, running, always in constant flow of a river whose current she had no wish to drown in. She leaves the door ajar ever so slightly before running back to Erik, whose expression of expectancy troubles her more than it should.

"It's a station passageway," she reports.

Another shot, and she flinches. She wonders why they aren't the loud, shattering gunshots in those action movies, instead quiet bursts of air that are enough to chip away at the tiles of the station's walls.

"What kind of station passageway?" he presses, sheathing his gun. "Did you see any signs? Anything?"

Her dread spikes and she shakes her head. The sigh he gives is indicative enough of his disappointment.

"That will have to do, we can lose him there. Quickly, get the bags."

They have no time to reassemble the previous arrangement of their luggage or scramble to get everything they can. She rushes for the violin first, slinging it over her chest before she gets her own stroller and overnight bag. He holds the box under his arm, taking whatever she left behind.

"Go," he whispers. "I'll be right behind you."

She makes no effort to hide the weight of her steps now, and the gunshots increase in rapidity to respond, forcing her already tired body to move faster. She reaches the door and pulls it open, disappearing into the crowd without a second thought. At this moment, she'd rather be lost than be found.

The crowd rushes to cover her, blanketing her in constant motion. The current is particularly strong and she has to force her way through with various muttered apologies and calls to part ways. Every hue, every sound and sensation speeds past to be replaced with something else, and the multitude fills in every space that appears vacant if only for a second. In the distance, she sees a tall gateway leading to an exit of a street, something the signs overhead point to as the Rue du Havre. She finds the flow moving in that direction and vanishes into it, looking back to see that the shooter they had been running from was nowhere to be seen.

Then a cold chill washes over her.

_Erik. Where's Erik?_

She spins around, looking for any semblance of him: the tall form and the black clothing, a pillar of cold in the midst of warmth, but he wasn't behind her like he appeared to be from the corner of her eye, mere seconds ago. Her heart beats quickly and her mind runs before she can even stop to process anything, the crowd barely stopping and only working to exacerbate her anxiety. What if the shooter took him? What if he got lost? What if —

A gloved hand latches onto her shoulder, forcing her to look back, to be met with that strange gaze.

"I said I'd be right behind you," he says, his voice louder than any of the crowd's murmurs could be.

Her heart nearly sighs in relief, but her brows furrow. "Wait, how did you disappear into the —?"

"Later, angel. Before any of that, let's leave."

He sounds irritated, unnerved, and she glances up for mere seconds to see his eyes on everything but her, shoulders and torso tense, just like he was in Lannion except to a much more superlative degree.

Then, his voice comes more urgently. "_Please."_

She obeys, pushing further into the crowds as they spill out onto the exit of the station. The sun hits her first before anything, before the wind and the sound and the rush of Paris. It had not changed, for the time she was away: it was just as noisy, just as sophisticated and full of sound and light and culture for every square inch of its air. The Rue d'Amsterdam that the station opened onto bustles wildly in the noontime, never ceasing to stop, not even for a moment, to admire the tall buildings, the embellishments and history seeping into every stone on the pavement, the music of the city itself wafting through the air.

It continues to be nothing like Perros-Guirrec; or like nothing in the world, or that matter.

"Hurry," he urges, interrupting her thoughts and bringing her gaze back to him.

The shadowed form of him across the crowds is almost a blur, and she struggles to keep up with him as he turns to the corner of Saint-Lazare, where a number of cars remain parked on the bay for taxis to pick up passengers. Around noon, most of the newcomers moved to the bus stations across the road, waiting for the next round of rush hours that would follow until the evening. It may be a tad bit odd that there were little to no pedestrians around this side of the station, even at such a busy time.

"Is he still there?" she asks him nervously.

He glances behind for a brief moment, the calm and collected facade she was so used to seeing beginning to crack. "No, for now. We need to move faster, angel."

She fights the urge to groan in exhaustion, accompanied by the panic that captures and releases her, and the speed of which he forces her to pace. But that coalition of emotions quickly merges into bewilderment when he stops at one of the last cars parked along the block: a sleek, black thing that appears neither new, nor old. He looks around cautiously, then kneels in front of its door.

"Erik?" she frowns. "What are you—"

"See to it no one is coming," he interjects, procuring a small, thinly crooked wire of metal from the inside of his coat pocket.

Her eyes widen, and all else is replaced with a hot, searing anger that is choked with fear.

"Erik, you are _not_ stealing a car," she says sternly, voice shaking.

"Then tell me what else we should _do,_ angel," he replies, seething, eyes focused on the keyhole he inserts the thin rod into; he fumbles around the mechanism in a way too precise to be mere guesswork. "Because, from the way the situation appears to me now, we are being pursued by someone who could kill us both, and we haven't the time to be waiting around to hail a taxi or be delayed by any sort of public transportation. Unless, of course, you can offer any law-abiding alternative to dealing with a man with a gun."

She has none, which infuriates her.

The latch of the car audibly clicks, and the vehicle chirps to life. Erik stands and, testing the door, opens the driver's seat with an ease that should have been with the car's rightful owner.

"Get in," he commands, rushing past her to take the luggage.

She still stands there, mortified and incredulous, distress now rising against the side of her that has placed her faith in Erik (if she indeed has any faith in him at all).

"We don't have much time," she hears him from the back accompanied by the sound of the trunk popping open.

She whips around to look at him loading their things into the stolen car, and she's unable to hide the clenching of her teeth. "Didn't you drive a car to Perros?"

"Yes, and how wise it would have been of me to use a car with a license plate so easily traceable back to my estate."

"Erik, this is—"

"Theft, a felony against the law, beneath me," he finishes for her in a sarcastic tone that grits against her irritation towards him. "The list could go on, but I'd rather we finish this list en route away from the station."

She takes in a breath and exhales just as sharply, turning the disappointment back to herself as well in that she now has no other choice but to listen. She runs over to the passenger's side of the car, silently offering a hundred apologies for whoever owned this vehicle as she shut the door and buckled the seatbelt. After hearing the trunk close shut, Erik follows into the car, putting his hat on the dashboard and loosening his scarf before turning the rearview mirror in the opposite direction.

She frowns. "Don't you need that to drive?"

"No," he replies curtly, bending down underneath the steering wheel.

She can't see into the darkness beneath the driver's pit, but he tinkers with something below it, and in a few seconds, the car revs to life. A sickening feeling sinks into her bones, but he gives her no time to react when he looks behind, steps on the pedal, shifts the car into gear, and lurches full speed out into the speeding traffic of the Rue d'Amsterdam.

The blur of Saint-Lazare's crowd zooms past her when they turn right onto a wider street, impolitely cutting through the zipper lane and narrowly avoiding a red light. With the threat of the shooter behind them, her heart thumps wildly in her chest, panic digging its claws into her chest as he continues down the road.

"Wait, where are you taking me?" she demands more than she asks. "I haven't even told you where my—"

"Our plans have changed," he interrupts _again,_ shifting the car into a faster gear. "If they knew to send a man to intercept us at Saint-Lazare, then my suspicions were correct. They know you're here in Paris, which would make it unsafe for you to stay in an apartment alone."

She faces him now, upset by the fact that she's talking to the side with the mask rather than his face. "I won't be alone."

A frown is evident in his voice. "What do you mean?"

"You know that my lodging here in Paris was supplied by a family friend—"

"Who we can't risk endangering now, especially with your involvement."

Rage is hot in her throat. "Would you stop cutting me off for _one _se—?!"

He suddenly hits the breaks, effectively stopping their argument as they reach the intersection of the Église de la Sainte-Trinité. The pedestrians he had paused for began to pick up their pace on the road, alarmed at the dangerous speed he had stopped on. The element of possible danger seems to have burned its way into him as well, his shoulders falling and rising with heavy breathing.

"Forgive me," he mutters.

It takes him a moment to recollect himself before they continue. In the wake of their argument, the stolen car is silent; she hadn't even noticed the view of Paris through the tinted windows, Haussman-style buildings lining the old streets she had dreamed of being lost in as a young girl.

"So what now?" she muses aloud.

He sighs, leaning back against the chair. "You'll have to stay with me for the time being."

A cold sensation washes over her body, but it doesn't scrub away her indignation. "Unbelievable. Of _course_ I'll have to stay with you."

"You think I would have wanted to have my secluded lifestyle disrupted by your presence?"

There is frustration in his voice again, which exacerbates her temper more. "Oh, I didn't think my presence was that much of a bother to you. Do you think I wanted any of this?"

"I could very well ask the same thing."

What had been the low baritone of his voice became a rolling crescendo of timpani thunder. It kills any retort she had, and lets the background noises of Paris invade the confined car space for a few beats too long. She gets the feeling that neither of them liked what the other had insinuated.

"I'm sorry," she starts, before either of them can interrupt each other. "I know you didn't have to do any of this: attend my father's funeral and trouble yourself with me. You had the choice not to get involved, but you did anyway."

The car moves forward, she notes him shifting the gear. "You had that choice too, Christine."

The sincere quality to his voice, coupled by the way he says her name, should not pacify her anger that quickly. But deep down, she knows she never had that choice, not with the element of danger ready to rise with her every step.

"I know."

Silence. He passes by another intersection, but drives straight down the road.

"Did you know him?" she asks.

"Who?"

"The man at the station."

There is a miniscule shake of his head. "No. I have no idea who he is."

Her brows furrow. "Funny. He seemed to know _you."_

"What?"

"He called you something. A nickname?" Malak… _something._ It sounded foreign.

He pauses in thought. "That's a complicated matter."

It's like _everything_ is complicated to him, and all of those frustrations build up like a pit in her throat. "But I don't understand _anything._ Why my father? Why me? Does the Cantabile even exist?"

"If that man at the station suggests an answer, it's likely so. But we can't be sure until I peruse through your father's belongings."

"You mean _we_ peruse through my father's belongings."

He turns left onto another street, sighing. "Yes, I meant _we."_

How odd it is, in that simply getting him to agree with something is a small enough victory. He turns a tight corner right, sluggishly taking them along a thin road.

"I'd like to apologise in advance," he says. "Most of my apartments were built and furnished without commodities for guests in mind. But seeing as how your presence complicates that matter, you can take the bed."

She blinks at the mention of 'most apartments,' implying he has more than one. "What about you?"

That query seemed to catch him as off-guard as his proposal did to her. "I… don't use the bed often, so it's no great loss to me."

"Okay."

He turns into another thin alleyway and parks the car next to a line of motorcycles, reaching below to cut off the power of the engine. Once he exits, a silence thrums loud around her before the trunk behind shuts closed. She's then left alone in the car, the tinted windows offering a view of the entrance to a rather modern apartment complex, with the same beige blocks typical of Haussman apartments but taller glass windows and sleek, ornate steel railings guarding them.

The opening of the car door at her side nearly makes her jump, but the dark form of the masked man waits there, tall and lean, whom one would mistake for a terrifying stranger. Their luggage is piled neatly at his feet, in the same arrangement it had been when they left at Lannion. He had donned his hat and his scarf was still wound loosely in loops around his neck, but parts of his face and lines of the mask can still be seen if she gazes up to search for them.

He bends down, and offers his hand.

It occurs to her again, for what should be the hundredth time, that she knows nothing about him except for what he could afford with his personal limits. M. Séraphin, Erik, or whoever he may be, is an enigma of a man, who obviously has his own obstacles and complications, and a startling lack of transparency in conversation. He exudes the very same danger that has been chasing her ever since she was informed of the misfortune that befell her father that fateful evening. She has absolutely no reason to put any more trust into the flesh of hands she's never seen, apart from the everlasting strength Father's word had over her. And though the doubt nags in her mind, though this fabrication he might be weaving is being pulled over her eyes, the threat she saw today had been very real indeed. There is nowhere else to turn to.

She slips her hand into his, and finds that the leather of the glove is cold.


End file.
